


Leaning Into It

by mousemecha



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: F/M, Predator/Prey, Softcore Porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-16
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2019-05-07 17:42:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14676182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mousemecha/pseuds/mousemecha
Summary: Nick indulges a scenario Judy's had in mind for a long time.





	Leaning Into It

**Author's Note:**

> Spoiler warning for the movie, of course.

Chief Bogo told Judy to take the day off tomorrow. He said something about her overtime draining the budget as much as Clawhauser’s appetite, but she was sure he didn’t want to admit that she had burned through all the cases he had ready. When she told Nick and off-handedly commented on how boring it could be at her place, Nick offered that she visit his again. He could use one of his personal days—they could make it a special occasion. Judy wasn’t particularly excited to miss work, but inwardly she was eager to talk to him, alone. She realized that some time off could help the pair work through a little issue that had been bugging her for a while.

Ever since their ruse with the blueberries to fool Bellwether, Judy couldn’t stop thinking back to when Nick acted feral. The wild, atavistic power of her civilized friend…the prey instincts that told her to run balanced by absolute trust and safety, even when her throat was in his jaws…something had crystallized inside Judy. If she could just see him again like that—feral and wild—then maybe she could understand those feelings better.

***

She was still thinking about it the next day, as she and Nick relaxed inside his apartment. They joked and laughed and watched TV, but her pensiveness didn’t escape the sly fox’s notice. Judy never was good at keeping secrets; when Nick asked what was bugging her, she spilled the carrots and told him what was on her mind.

It took a long while to explain, and Nick waited patiently until she was finished. By that time, Judy was hot from embarrassment. She worried so much about what he would think. Would Nick think she still held on to her prejudices, or even worse, would he think she was a pervert? She nervously laid back on the sofa with her feet in Nick’s lap, a throw pillow clutched to her chest, and big, sparkling eyes watching for his reaction.

Nick finally tilted his head. With a sly grin, he spoke. “So…you want me to be…a stereotypical predator. To be fierce, ferocious, bloodthirsty, predatory…And after *all this time*, Carrots. I trusted you!”

He spoke in mock outrage, and Judy could tell by now that he was just teasing. She huffed and her tiny paws shoved his chest with surprising force; he was winded but chuckled anyway.

“N-no, dumb fox!” she stuttered. “I want you to *act*. Like our hustle when we bagged Ms. Bellwether.” She smiled anxiously. “Like a con.”

Nick folded his ears back and grinned. “Here I thought I was out, but they just keep dragging me back in.” Judy scoffed. “Okay,” he said, “so you want me to play a *role*. Wow, Cotton, if I had known you played Burrows & Boggarts, I would have brought my dice.”

This time it was her strong legs that pushed him off the couch. Nick kept grinning, even on the floor, Judy covered her face with her pillow, and her ears folded back. He realized that she was getting a little raw, and he stopped smiling. “Sorry, Judy—that was mean. I won’t admit it’s not a little weird, and maybe a teensy bit *racist*…” He saw her wince. She could be very sheepish for a rabbit. “…but I’ll consider it. I owe you that much.”

Her ears rose again, bringing Nick’s smile back. She had always trusted him so much that it was bewildering to him. He’d never met anyone else that would trust a fox with anything, especially something so personal to a fox with a sly mouth like him. “So…how would it work, dame?”

“W-well,” she said, “I always thought that maybe the rabbit, I mean, me, could be in bed, at night. You know, rabbits are asleep then.”

“Stereotypically.”

“Shush! And, well, the fox—”

“That’s me, right?”

“I said shush! The fox would sneak in at night when I’m sleeping, and sneak over to the bed, and you know, um—do predator stuff.”

“‘Predator stuff’?” Nick made a heroic effort not to be snide, but she was just so adorable when flustered.

“I, uhm, you know, like pick me up in your claws and jaws, and um, go to town.”

“Can you name me in your will first? I pay taxes now, but with the hours you’ve been working that inheritance would still be sweet.”

“No, you don’t actually eat me!” she said.

Nick couldn’t help but laugh at the fact that she actually felt the need to say that—she was so easy to rile up. “Really, Carrots? I don’t eat you? Then what ‘predator stuff’”—his fingers made air quotes, and she scowled—“do I do?”

“Like, nibble and scratch. Just a bit. Like a massage. But with teeth and probably claws.” Her ears fold and Nick’s heart melted. If I were a vampire bat, he thought, I could pick up her blush in infrared. She buried her head into the throw pillow further, examining the houndstooth pattern. She was the most fiery prey animal he knew, but he had never seen her this vulnerable since the time she had returned to Zootopia to apologize to him. He felt that if she had opened up to him like this, he at least owed her his best.

He leaned forward and hugged her. She stiffened at first—then hugged him back. He was still amused at the idea and thought about it while he hugged her, but his composure crumbled as he realized just how good she smelled.

He coughed and broke the hug, returning to a respectable, just-friends distance. She looked at him with a pleading smile. “Okay, Bun-Bun, we’ll play your little game tonight.” He leaned back nonchalantly as she bounced on the cushion in glee and clapped her little paws. Nick felt the need to add, “But next time I’m getting my dice and wizard hat.”

The throw pillow boffed him in the side of the head, but he was the real winner.

They spent the rest of the day like they usually do: a mix of movies, meals, and conversation, but Judy couldn’t help but tap her foot constantly in anticipation as the sun set.

The night was quieter than usual, and Judy could tell Nick was sometimes deep in thought. Occasionally he would ask her questions about her game. “Isn’t this the kind of thing we don’t want people to worry about with predators?” Nick said in between a round of cards.

Judy paused before answering, shuffling and dealing. “It’s just between you and me. Whatever prejudice I had…I kind of want to prove how silly it is. It’s like you’re being a parody of what my parents were afraid of. I’m not the same bunny who would pull fox repellent on you in the ZPD lobby.” She cringed at the memory but kept dealing the cards. There was silence as she finished.

“I’m still sorry about that, Nick.”

Nick merely waved his paw, but that was enough to show he understood. She smiled again, until he said, “That’s right, Carrots, what would Pa and Ma Carrots say?”

Judy blanched. “Let’s not mention this to my parents.” She laughed, and he did too.

They didn’t talk about their plan for the rest of the game. It was at twilight, when they had been cooking a salad and stew, that Nick finally asked another question.

“Wouldn’t it be too scary?” he said as he cut the lilac sprigs. “What’s the appeal, Carrots? How do you have fun with it?”

Judy spoke without looking up. “No, it’s not going to be scary. Well, it might be, but…it’s more like it'll be thrilling. Like a horror movie. I know you’re not actually going to eat me tonight.” Nick internally debated teasing her about the double entendre, but the spreading blush on his face made him leave it alone.

“I guess I just, you know… have paid special attention to foxes since I was young. I heard so many bad things about them that they kind of became an archetype, even if intellectually I knew they were just regular mammals. Of course I know that foxes are real people, and that it’s wrong to reduce them into a caricature…”

“Carrot-cature,” Nick corrected. Judy smacked his paws with her wooden spoon, and he yipped.

“…And while I know that it’s wrong to believe or promote that portrayal, that caricature still brings up feelings for me. It makes me feel on edge—in a good way! Like before we kick in a barricaded suspect’s door.”

“How did you survive to twenty-six if that’s how you have a good time?” Nick asked; Judy laughed and kept stirring. Nick couldn’t think of any more concerns, and they ate their dinner pensively as night fell.

As Nick and Judy washed dishes together, Judy had to stand on a tiny footstool to reach his fox-height sink. She made fun of him for owning so little silverware, and he replied that bachelor foxes are solitary creatures who often eat their meals on the run. She rolled her eyes, but she was embarrassed to find just the mention of eating made her nose twitch in excitement.

It was quiet for a while before Judy realized Nick was staring at her.

“About time for bed?” he said. Judy bit her lip and nodded slowly. Nick's gentle vulpine smile, however, put her at ease.

They dried their paws on the dish towel, put away Judy’s footstool, and changed separately into night clothes. Judy couldn’t conceal the tiniest spring in her step when she walked alone into Nick’s bedroom. Nick smiled and shook his head. He waited behind, noodling around on his phone.

Judy lay in Nick’s long bed for nearly twenty minutes. She didn’t mean to snoop, but she smelled the sheets intently and found herself oddly satisfied that they only smelled like Nick, and that she didn’t detect any ‘visitors’. Well, any visitors other than her. She admonished herself for caring so much.

A creak on the floorboards and her heart raced. He must be coming in! She restrained a girlish squeal. She lay back in bed perfectly straight, in the way she used to pretend to sleep when her parents caught her reading late on a school night. The room was still, except for the subtle rustling of Nick's clothes as he skulked in.

Suddenly, she remembered something, and she bolted up in bed. “Wait, Nick?”

Nick froze on all fours, halfway over to the bed. He was sure she was asleep! He felt a twinge in his pride. “What’s up, Hopps?”

Her rabbit eyes peered ineffectively in the dark, but her ears swiveled to Nick’s position like radar dishes. “I-if you really were a savage predator, you wouldn’t…”

With his night vision, Nick can see she has difficulty continuing. He raised an eyebrow, not knowing what to expect.

“…you wouldn’t be wearing any clothes.”

There was a pregnant pause. Outside, a distant siren crescendoed, plateaued, and faded away.

“Uhm, Judy, I, uh.” For once, he was speechless. She's the only one that still surprises me, he thought.

“I-it’s okay, I can’t see you in the dark anyway, so you don’t have to worry about me looking at you.”

“Hopps,” Nick said flatly. "If you can’t see, why do I need to be naked?”

She blushed again in the dark. Judy was never too afraid to ask for what she wanted—just sometimes unsure about how. “It just, um, matters.” She hastily added, “If that’s okay with you!”

Nick noticed she was smiling nervously in the dark, her little paws idly smoothing the bedsheets. Nick thought about her trust again—her trusting him not to burst out laughing. He owed her just another little thing, right?

Nick sighed melodramatically, but smiled as well. “Okay, Carrots. Just don’t turn the lights on. I’ll go back outside and we’ll just reset.” He saw her beaming face before she curled back down into bed. Bemused, he walked back out of his own bedroom door.

It was a hot night, and the cool air conditioning felt weird against his newly exposed fur. He undid the buttons deliberately, while thinking about Judy.

“For someone so straight-laced,” he said to himself, “you sure have a weird idea of a good night.” Nick dutifully slid out of his shirt and pants and laid them across his kitchen table. After some hesitation, he the underwear joined them. “You better enjoy this, Judy.” He opened the door and slunk in on all fours. He saw Judy lying perfectly still, pretending to sleep. She seemed so peaceful, so calm.

Internally, Judy was electrified. She could hear the blood whooshing in her ears. Just the anticipation—just laying there, wondering if every tiny noise in the room was a fearsome beast sneaking up to pounce on her and to make her a meal—felt like enough to make her yell. Had she not been laying down, she would have been worried about fainting. She was going against every instinct hidden deep in her ancestral rabbit past, every advice her parents had raised her to follow. By transgressing that advice she left herself so very vulnerable.

For a by-the-book police officer who wouldn’t sin with God Himself telling her to, it was a fantastic rush.

The smallest noise of a claw scratching on wood almost made her leap in surprise, but she laid still. With only a thin bedsheet and silk pajamas between her body and the hot summer night air, she felt so exposed. She shivered. The idea that any second—

She saw a blur in the dark. She heard a rumbling, feral growl, terrifyingly close.

Something big and sleek shot into her bed. It tore the sheet from her paws! It towered over her, bouncing her up in the mattress with its mass. She could make out its shape by the shining blue-moonlight eyes and the yellow-streetlamp fur—so big and sharp and scary.

She yelped at first then covered her mouth in fear. In the back of her mind she knew it was just a game, and that stopped her from kicking and screaming—but every other part of her felt alight, as if she were made of coiled springs about to burst in every direction. She lied rigidly still—and still also was the massive, sleek shape surrounding her in her bed.

Save for her shallow breaths, there was no sound.

The beast that loomed over her leaned closer. Its angular muzzle approached her ear. She could just barely see its lips curl back to reveal pearly daggerlike teeth. A growl emanated from the beast, rumbling inches from her ear. Her whole body shook like an earthquake; she couldn’t help but whimper. She felt so very afraid—

—but at the same time, utterly and perfectly safe. Every sensation felt profoundly sharp, every single feeling so raw and unfiltered. She could only imagine what her terrified face must look like.

Meanwhile, Nick Wilde had no fucking clue what he was doing.

He was naked as a mole rat in the middle of the night, leaning over his best friend on all fours in a bed, growling like a maniac. If anyone ever found about this, Nicholas Piberius Wilde would never live it down.

But still—he could see her clearly in the dark. In every other visible way she was a terrified, shivering bunny, but at the same time she was beaming the biggest, dopiest bunny smile he had ever seen. She doesn’t even realize she was doing it!

She was loving this in that all-in way only Judy could do. Nick wanted to cut the tension with something snarky, but he was playing his role for now. Here goes nothing, he thought.

Judy did not move. Maybe if she was absolutely still, she thought, he can’t—

The beast dove into her with the speed of a bridge cable snapping. She had time only to make the first inch of a yelp before its teeth were around her throat and its claws were in her belly. She felt trapped, restrained, dominated. For a split second she was sure there was no escape.

But the pain never came. She felt hot panting flutter her throat fur, and the moisture of its maw matted down her fuzz. The firm but painless pressure of his teeth, its oh-my-god-actually-real-teeth on either side of her throat, was the complete and total focus of her attention. She was pretty sure she was seeing spots—not due to a lack of air, but just because of the excitement.

All Nick could think of in that moment was, “Holy hell, does she smell good.” Lilacs and poppy flowers—her last meal. “Previous meal,” Nick thought to himself. “Not her final meal.”

They remained frozen for almost a minute, entwined in a horizontal tango. All that were visible were lambent ripples of streetlights off fur…and wet sparkles from Judy’s soaked throat fur. Nick was salivating.

Slowly, Nick began to tickle her with his claws, and nibble at Judy’s throat.

Her dopey smile widened. Her giggles rose slowly, like a pot of heated water, before they boiled over and deep, full-body laughs wracked her. Nick kept his grasp on her throat at a gentle nibble as he ran his claws up and down her soft belly, brushing them against her silk pajamas, sometimes poking his claws through the thin fabric. She was so impossibly soft. While his tickling destroyed her composure and dignity, he couldn’t stop his own tail from uncharacteristically wagging in glee. He was glad she had terrible night vision.

Judy was floating in the sky. Her throat still wet with Nick’s breath, his nibbles now traveled up and down her body—to her collar and cheek. Nick, ever the gentlefox, restricted his clawful affections to her belly and ribs, avoiding anything higher. There were no words Judy could give to express the utter trust in him she had, so she merely giggled, not even attempting to fend off the sharp, predatory claws gently annihilating her belly. Her feet kicked and bucked automatically in the space below him.

—until she felt her footpad brush his inner thigh, very, very near an intimate spot. She heard him yelp, and they both froze. Suddenly, he was no longer a ferocious beast, and she was no longer a gleefully devoured rabbit.

Just friends, right? she thought.

They were both acutely aware of how closely their bodies were touching. They both felt the heat from each other’s faces; their lips were dangerously bordering a kiss. Judy’s eyes searched in the dark for Nick’s, and Nick’s eyes looked straight into hers. She could hear his heartbeat, and he could feel hers shaking her tiny chest. Both of them, a hundred miles a minute.

All of a sudden, his experience as her friend felt inadequate. Nick knew instinctively that at some point they had done something more intimate than what a predator and prey could do, or even what friends could do, and he hesitated there as if the world was going to punish him for it.

For an agonizingly long time, nothing happened.

Then Judy leaned forward and kissed him.

Nick froze. His brain was whirling. He hadn’t kissed a girl since high school, and that was with another fox who wore braces. His and Judy’s muzzles didn’t quite match, but Judy was rapidly experimenting. She was irrepressibly eager and, after recovering, Nick matched her in full. Their lips locked together. She moaned so deeply that he was sure he could feel it in his paws. And though he wouldn’t ever admit it, he moaned too.

He fell on top of her like a dropped ocean, bare fur or not, and his long canine tongue explored her mouth. He tasted lilacs and poppy flowers,the stuff he could only smell earlier. He wrapped his sharp predator claws around her back, lifting her body up into him, clinging her to him. She wrapped her toned prey legs around his back, and they kissed for ages, breathing through their nostrils, ragged and panting, until they broke the kiss to catch a breath. Nick was the predator, but now Judy looked hungry.

They smiled at one another, both exhilarated. Judy had still been hanging to him like a koala on a branch, but her legs slipped off, and her rump flopped onto the mattress. Nick was lost in her, but some hazy, distant voice drove him to speak.

“Now that was a hustle, sweetheart,” Nick heard himself say.

Judy merely pulled him under the blankets—  
—and they were too busy hustling to come back out until well into the next day.


End file.
